I'm on E-on Next Drive, and it's great, started saving money even before the battery was installed (just run your heavy loads overnight, and it's cheaper than a normal tariff). However, I would say that the downside is the lack of flexibility - with Octopus, you can flip between tariffs on a monthly basis, so for example, you could be on Go during winter, and IF during summer. Drive is a great tariff in winter, and a good (but not great) tariff in summer. So I'll probably stick with Drive until Spring 2026, then swap to Octopus (assuming of course that they don't add better summer tariffs to their line-up before then).
that sounds like a good plan. I do like the flexibility of octopus to move tariffs, we go with IOG until spring then goto Agile for the summer as it generally gives me the lowest rates for the minute amounts of power we draw during the day
Have tried Agile, but have now changed to Cosy. I find that without battery storage, the Cosy tariff suits me fine. I have a Heat Pump and an EV which does not need charging every day, so use the two nighttime reduced cost periods to charge it when needed. The afternoon cheap period is ideal for using the washing machine, drier and other high energy use items.
yeah, I think if I didn’t have batteries then that would be the route that I would go. I’m not really sure why the cozy cheap rate is so much more than the EV rates, maybe I’ll ping an email off to octopus to see if I can get them to enlighten us.
Very informative Jon. Been an Octopus customer for over six years when I used to change every couple. This data gathering is the same across everything nowadays. Been looking at Solar and heat pumps, but will only give you a quote (guide price) after getting email & mobile on top of name and address.
Data gathering is becoming a real issue, I was talking to somebody recently who works in this field and they tell me absolute horror stories about what happens to your data.
Where I live there is less choice. Your comments about suppliers NOT revealing tariff cost breakdown until after you sign up happens here too. Whilst watching this video has prompted me to construct a spreadsheet of my own so that I can plug in the various tariffs for all in my jurisdiction. Before I retired the company I worked for do exactly that but for industrial and commercial purposes only. I’m surprised no one has made an app for it yet. Thanks for the inspiration.
glad it was helpful. I find it really dishonest that these companies won’t just tell you how much their energy costs. I suspect if you and I live next door to each other both entered our details, we would get different prices.
I would be interested in the spreadsheet to apply the same logic to my HH readings. I see other tariffs which don’t require any more personal data than octopus to find out unit prices. Tomato energy have been in energy supply business since 2015 but have been renaming themselves several times during that period and attracted the attention of the regulator more than once. Make your own mind up about that.
Solar, batteries & EV here & I'm on Octopus Intell Go (still got gas CH). Works fine for me. The extra 1hr cheap rate overnight is good for charging our 64kWh EV to 80%, 19kWh of batteries & running a washing M/C & a HP Tumble Dryer overnight. Some nights we pull 19/20kW from the grid which is very close to the incoming 80amp main fuse. Excess solar generation & export during the summer is now paying for our gas consumption during the winter.
@@JonathanTracey My DNO (NG) has already upgraded my incoming fuse from 60amp to 80amp when I had my & my neighbours house separated from a common incoming mains cable (needed when I installed a car charger because the common mains cable was not large enough). They cut the link between the two houses, dug up / mole bored my neighbours drive & put a new cable in for him from the street & replaced both of our main fuses - or so I thought. A year after installing batteries, solar & getting an EV my main fuse blew. Turns out the DNO forgot to replace the 60amp fuse with an 80amp in my meter cupboard when they did the original work. After blowing the fuse they were on site & replaced the fuse & a rather fried fuse carrier within an hour of me calling them! Apparently our local sub-station is down for an upgrade / replacement. This & all the previous work was done FOC as well. All this on needed for a 1986 built house. Makes you wonder how much infrastructure upgrade work is going to be needed across the country to facilitate going all electric.
Great video, how did Agile Tracker fair? I saw a couple of days recently of 32p and 39p per KWh. Not as scary as £1 on true Agile. I have a Heatpump but no EV/battery/solar yet.
John, great video with clear presentation. Because you have such large battery storage then clearly the tariff with the lowest import rate will win for you (in winter). With your spreadsheet would you be able to analyse what tariff would be cheapest if you had say only a 10kWh battery (like me 😔) or even a small 5kWh one? I have A2A heat pumps and I am on Cosy, but my tariff selection is only judgemental rather than analytical 😊. Also, what are the export rates for the non-Octopus tariffs? Sometimes even in winter we can get paid for exporting (on a rare sunny day).
i decided to leave solar and export out as it’s too variable, my generation and my neighbours are very different and as you say batteries make that even more variable. i will look and see if i can make unusable for different battery sizes, just hope my spreadsheet skills are not too rusty
how much difference does it make? I really didn’t want to handover lots of personal information to these companies just to do a bit of research but interesting to know that the rates are variable. Thanks I appreciate the information.
@JonathanTracey it should be just some drop downs on their website. But you get midnight till 6am at 5p, so 6 hours, then 9.30am to 11.30 at 13p aprrox and another slot at 10pm to mid night at 13p ish, and standard rate 24p between. And 42p standing charge.
Thing with Eon Next Drive - you don't have to have a smart EV or compatible EV Charger setup/linked to EV & servers as in Octopus Intelligent Go (Zappi/Ohme - linked/sync to car) With Eon ND it offers 6.7p EV charging & house for 7 hours with ANY CHARGER - heck even a 3 pin Granny charger. So you don't have to get a new wall-charger or the faff of syncing EV, just plug in your EV, your 2nd EV, or a visiting friend's EV & charge at the off-peak period for 6.7p Also SEG is 16.5p per kWh when exporting solar - 10% more than Octopus SEG & cheaper off-peak charging Yes, there are no free time slots with Eon ND, so it's swings & roundabouts I guess, but it is fixed for 12 months with no penalty to change/leave - so it's a fairly good option if you need to fix your energy tariff for a while & no issue to switch a later tariff if prices go down (I've been on it since ND v1 to v2 to v3 etc... - a quick call & it's switched to lower rate in 24hrs, often less)
@@robertredpath4817 Yeah, we leased (salary sacrifice) an EV, limped along for 6 months on a granny charger, so you can get by on a 3 pin, bit of a pinch on bigger EV batteries, but you can get by charging say 13kW over night for modest local journeys of 40-50 miles per day at a pinch. After a while we bought a s/hand EV & a spark friend fitted a variable current cheap/dumb wall-charger to charge both EV's as needed. We did eventually get a free Zappi fitted/commissioned as part of lease deal, but not long after, we cancelled the leased EV & kept the s/hand one we bought. Got a free Zappi though if I do decide one day to switch to Octopus Intelligent Eon ND allowed us to charge EV/Home cheaply without having to meet certain requirements demanded by Octopus Intelligent communicating/syncing with EV etc... I nearly switched to Octopus, but was surprised that Octopus didn't lower their OI from 7.5p to well under 7p, when Eon ND v3 reduced to 6.9p, now 6.7p on v4 (now v5 & same 6.7p) - so stayed with Eon ND, fixing our electric & also gas for 12 months I think a number of people have realised this & people like "Everything Home" on YT, have done the maths and left Octopus for Eon Next Drive & their higher SEG It's not just the EV rate, but the SEG means your export value will be 10% higher if you have solar installed... No offence Octopus, but you gotta up your game a little as Eon ND offers cheaper energy, higher SEG rates without all the data sharing & specific charging requirements to qualify for Intelligent tariff. There's no referral link - I'm just explaining the no fuss, no app, no syncing alternative to cheaper EV charging & SEG too if you have solar
The one thing I did notice was that with the exception of intelligent octopus go, none of the EV tariffs made you prove that you actually had an EV. Some asked you what kind of car you had, but other than that, you didn’t have to give any form of proof.
@@JonathanTracey You forgot OVO, they require you to have specific smart chargers to qualify for their EV only anytime - same sort of list as Octopus Intelligent Ohme, Indra, Hypervot - not sure about Zappi ??? So, yeah there are a couple of EV Intelligent tariffs, require specific smart chargers or smart EV's like Tesla's that all communicate/verify you have/using said EV on their tariff I did respond to the Leaf owner but it didn't post (sort by newest & ping it's actually there) One thing about Eon Next Drive, different to Octopus... Eon remain on GMT all year... If you get off-peak midnight to 7.00 cheap charging in winter in summer when clocks change, you get 01.00 to 08.00 BST off-peak charging as it's still midnight to 7 on GMT Octopus - do implement daylight savings, switching to BST in summer, unsure how it works when you gain/lose an hour but the off-peak times on Octopus switch between GMT & BST so the times generally remain the same Eon doesn't & so you need to be aware of this & adjust any timers implementing daylight savings automatically (If timers don't update daylight savings - then they stay on GMT & function correctly on Eon's GMT schedule) Personally I like Eon's GMT only schedule, the 7.00am becoming 8.00am in summer means I can shower very cheaply up until say 7.45am on an electric shower, which is better, even though off-peak charging is delayed until 1.00am
Interesting, but one thing you failed to take into account is export rates, over the course of the year it will make a vast difference to those with solar. Even this time of year export rates make a difference to me, I always fully charge on Go, excess solar is exported, any battery left after 7pm is exported, somedays even in December and January my electricity cost is negative.
I didn’t include them because they’re only applicable to a small number of people compared to the general population. However, I fully agree with you. I do the same. I charge my batteries up and if I have anything left by then export it later in the evening. However, for the last month, it hasn’t been an awful lot left.😂
@JonathanTracey Once we get our heat pump, I'm sure we'll have very little left, unless I get another battery. Just watched Andys Off Grid Garage test a DIY battery with 16.6 kWh of capacity, in everyday use the usable would be a bit less though. PS off to pick up my first EV today.
I’m on Agile, for comparison imported 1500kWh in December 2024 at an average of 15.44p. Agile monthly averages over the year have varied between 6.1p and 18.5p. For me this gives the cheapest way of running my heat pump in winter. I have compared Cosy in the winter and November would have been slightly less, December slightly more. A pound or two a day cheaper in the recent high Agile price days, but overall not a substantial saving to be made. Its worth saying that everyone’s calculation will be different. You have a huge amount of battery storage and inverters that can fill it up, for a lot of people the inverter charge rate and amount of battery storage become the limiting factors to minimising the electricity bill. Also suggest that if you have solar panels then consider a tariff for summer and potentially a different one for winter as the usage pattern can be so different. I was on Flux before Agile and have looked again at whether to change for this summer, but Flux export at 13.5p is worse than my 15p fixed export rate and the overnight import rate isn’t great either, so running the numbers it looked to be about the same. And BTW I would not be surprised if Tomato do fail. They’ve recently been named and shamed for consistently failing to settle their half-hour wholesale electricity readings; if they don’t get this sorted then they could well be very restricted in what they can do. We shall see. Be a pity if they do fall.
Agile is my summer tariff of choice, but as you say with large batteries in the winter Go or IGo make more sense for me. with regards to tomato it doesn’t surprise me. I’m very surprised the regulator lets the smaller companies get into the business with a history of so many of them failing
I am on Agile and like it. Luckily I have been on it for a few years so I know recent rates are not the norm. I did have the perfect storm of very cold and the £1 rates. I should have stopped the batteries to make sure I covered those slots, but that day the heat pump was working quite hard and it went flat. I did use the grid when it was £1 😮
ouch, I bet you those days hurt but as you say, if you average out over a full year, you’re not paying anywhere near that for an average price per kilowatt hour
@ indeed. I’m on track for my first £200 bill in over two years. My direct debit was £248 a month back in December 2022. It has been nothing like that since solar and battery installed.
Yeah if Agile which is market price + small markup always was more expensive then the other tariffs, it would imply that the other tariffs was running at constant loss.
Yes I have panels and battery but can’t access the cheap overnight rates where I am without an electric car. I have calculated that I could save at least £600 a year more if I could get an overnight tariff of less than 10p per KWh.
Why are you not considering Intelligent Flux? I have a solar array, a 9.5kw battery and a recently purchased electric vehicle. I do not normally do a lot of miles per annum,approx 6k. I have deliberately not changed to an EV tariff for one particular reason which is the export tariff. Using round figures I can import electricity 21p/kwh from 1900 hrs to 1600hrs. Octopus discharge my battery between 1600 to 1900. I get 28p/kwh. Using the Octopus EV trariffs you only receive 15p/kwh. If I have excess solar from 1900 to 1600hrs I get paid 21p/kwh. Excess between 1600 to 1900 is also credited at 28p/kwh. If you have a Zappi charger you can charge the vehicle directly cost zero. December, January and February are the worst months. I want to run it till July or August to see how I get on when my export picks up.
the main reason was that it’s only available to a very limited number of people, not only do you have to have a givenergy or enphase battery you have to give control of it to Octopus. this would make it impossible for me to model as i can’t predict when they would charge and discharge outside the fixed windows
@ the charging time does not matter as the price of the electricity is the same from 1900 hrs till 1600hrs the following day. That keeps things simple imo. Cheers.
@@JonathanTracey normally the battery discharges down to about 20% and they can take it down to 10%. I’ve never seen them do that. They sometimes discharge after 1900hrs. On the point you have raised I honestly could not give you a firm answer.
Interesting comparison, it's a shame really that you didn't include standing charges, whilst they do vary throughout the country, Tomato is considerably cheaper than all of the others and it would have made a difference to the final figures. The other point re Tomato, the EV Lifestyle tariff can provide 6 hours off peak midnight to 06:00 rather than the 5 hours you presented.
thanks for the info, the main reason for not including standing charges as they vary so wildly they could completely skew the results. For example standing charges in the east of England I’m nearly 20p lower than they are in the north of England or Scotland and that’s per day.
@@JonathanTracey I understand that but comparing whats available in your area comparing to the others including the standing charge would I feel be a useful exercise. Octpus 'v' Tomato is 21p per day different on average, £6.50 on the month. Of course, Tomato dont offer the sign up fees either which I'm sure will help your energy costs (it did for me when I was with Octopus). #8o)
they do offer some good incentives as you mentioned sign ups and referral fees however the big drawer for me is the free energy periods that we get in the east of England. I can take advantage of these to the tune of £30-£40 a month. The number I put up on the screen for December was actually discounted by £40 and a further £15 from export
Good video. IOG here with battery and really would like to jump to EON ND. It’s cheaper and having off peak until 7 (we all get up around 6 or so) would be a huge plus. Re: solar export income on EON ND - I don’t think it gets applied to account balance? How does that work - anyone know?
i don’t know how Eon handles export but octopus keep it seperate, you get a different line on the bill (and graph) on the website, i suspect it’s for accounting purposes, export payments are not vat rated while import is
By default I think Eon SEG will pay you annually, but you can request quarterly (4 times per year) Ring them up, they're pretty good, we contacted them to change Eon ND v1 to v2 to v3 etc... as rates changed Eon stay on GMT all year so the winter 00.00 to 07.00 becomes 01.00 to 08.00 which is great for morning showers in summer & stretching that 7 hours at 6.7p into the summer morning a bit more Just tell them you have bought an EV and using a 3 pin granny to charge until you get a wallbox for it - they won't care in the end
@ Think EDF use GMT all year round like Eon, unsure about others. Originally all smart meters stayed on GMT like ye olde radio signal for E7 tariffs. Octopus compile & process data themselves & so make the adjustment for daylight savings... People need to clarify this with their supplier and especially if they decide to switch providers - you should double check to avoid large consumption for an hour or so thinking it's 7p off-peak when in fact it is at 25p peak rate - yikes In the end, best double check with your supplier AND pay close attention to what your smart meter's little display doobery module is saying to confirm what they tell you... Our Eon little module is a great help telling us what price &when peak/off-peak begins. It is good for winter if battery storage is getting low when sun sets at 4 & off-peak kicks in 1 hr earlier than summer. Not a problem in summer when sun sets at 8, 9 or later to wait an hour for off-peak to start. Enjoying off-peak until 8.00am in summer is very handy, off-peak finishing at 7.00am in winter just means ensuring to shower early & cram in high demand before 7 & batteries charged well on short dark days with low solar generation Sounds confusing, but it isn't really, plus the display module explains what the rate/times are - clearly showing if off-peak begins at 00.00 or later 01.00 (Display module adjusts for daylight - even though the actual tariff times remain on GMT)
Hi John, I guess your'e not in one of the areas in the east of England where Octopus run the Octopus Power ups? I have used nearly £110 in totally free electricity from Octopus in the last year just participating in those and I have by no means maxed out the opportunities with it. I will stay with Octopus as I believe they will continue to innovate and drive change in the market.
yes, actually I do get the free energy sessions, if you look at the usage graph the three or four really big spikes you see those. However, I thought it was only fair to include those in the pricing given that not everybody gets them and they’re not available on all Tariffs. My actual bill was about £30 less than that by the time I included the free energy and the minimal export that I did during December.
Hi Jon. I will be getting solar, battery and ashp soon. No Ev. I was thinking of switching to flux from my Tracker tariff when I get the solar and battery but this has put me off a bit. Any suggestions as to what I should do? I would like to export some power back to grid in summer months if possible. Thanks.
You can get a fixed (15p) export tariff with any normal tariff. I think the only tariff that checks you have an ev is intelligent, the rest don’t do any checking.
someone else in the comments told me that they’ve been around about 10 years but they’ve changed their names two or three times. That tells me everything I need to know.
Why are non EV owners penalized when charging storage batteries offpeak afterall we are using the same excess energy as the EVs do. I am on Octopus Flux paying nearly double Octopus GO rates between 2.00-5.00am .Are there any tarrifs where you do not need an EV to get the cheaper rates thanks ?
I don’t know the real reason I suspect there is something in the background to do with government targets but that’s just a guess and I have no evidence of that. The one thing I do know is that apart from intelligent go no other tariff actually makes you prove that you have an EV.
@@EugeneLambert Not sure you can connect both zappis to intelligent Octopus go. To connect one Zappi: 1. you have to be an octopus customer with a well working smart meter. 2. In the octopus app go to “switch tariff” choose IOGo and choose integration via the Zappi 3. The whole process takes less than 10 minutes
Excellent data and presentation but to compare for just December is surely not representative for a whole year, plus solar generation would I guess be at a minimum for December and this was not mentioned. Would love to see your analysis for a year?? including solar
I deliberately left solar generation out of the equation as this may skew the results, especially as the vast majority of people don’t have solar yet. It took quite a bit of work to align all the data with each of the tariffs, to do this for a full year is quite an undertaking. However, I will look at it and see if there is an easier way to do this
I'm on E-on Next Drive, and it's great, started saving money even before the battery was installed (just run your heavy loads overnight, and it's cheaper than a normal tariff). However, I would say that the downside is the lack of flexibility - with Octopus, you can flip between tariffs on a monthly basis, so for example, you could be on Go during winter, and IF during summer. Drive is a great tariff in winter, and a good (but not great) tariff in summer. So I'll probably stick with Drive until Spring 2026, then swap to Octopus (assuming of course that they don't add better summer tariffs to their line-up before then).
that sounds like a good plan. I do like the flexibility of octopus to move tariffs, we go with IOG until spring then goto Agile for the summer as it generally gives me the lowest rates for the minute amounts of power we draw during the day
Have tried Agile, but have now changed to Cosy. I find that without battery storage, the Cosy tariff suits me fine. I have a Heat Pump and an EV which does not need charging every day, so use the two nighttime reduced cost periods to charge it when needed. The afternoon cheap period is ideal for using the washing machine, drier and other high energy use items.
yeah, I think if I didn’t have batteries then that would be the route that I would go. I’m not really sure why the cozy cheap rate is so much more than the EV rates, maybe I’ll ping an email off to octopus to see if I can get them to enlighten us.
Very informative Jon. Been an Octopus customer for over six years when I used to change every couple.
This data gathering is the same across everything nowadays. Been looking at Solar and heat pumps, but will only give you a quote (guide price) after getting email & mobile on top of name and address.
Data gathering is becoming a real issue, I was talking to somebody recently who works in this field and they tell me absolute horror stories about what happens to your data.
Where I live there is less choice. Your comments about suppliers NOT revealing tariff cost breakdown until after you sign up happens here too. Whilst watching this video has prompted me to construct a spreadsheet of my own so that I can plug in the various tariffs for all in my jurisdiction. Before I retired the company I worked for do exactly that but for industrial and commercial purposes only. I’m surprised no one has made an app for it yet. Thanks for the inspiration.
glad it was helpful. I find it really dishonest that these companies won’t just tell you how much their energy costs. I suspect if you and I live next door to each other both entered our details, we would get different prices.
I would be interested in the spreadsheet to apply the same logic to my HH readings. I see other tariffs which don’t require any more personal data than octopus to find out unit prices.
Tomato energy have been in energy supply business since 2015 but have been renaming themselves several times during that period and attracted the attention of the regulator more than once. Make your own mind up about that.
let me see what I can do to tidy up the spreadsheets and make them understandable by other people😂
yes please. That would save a lot of us several hours!
Solar, batteries & EV here & I'm on Octopus Intell Go (still got gas CH).
Works fine for me. The extra 1hr cheap rate overnight is good for charging our 64kWh EV to 80%, 19kWh of batteries & running a washing M/C & a HP Tumble Dryer overnight. Some nights we pull 19/20kW from the grid which is very close to the incoming 80amp main fuse. Excess solar generation & export during the summer is now paying for our gas consumption during the winter.
sounds good to me, depending on your DNO you can request an upgrade to your fuse to 100amp if needed, some even don-it for free
@@JonathanTracey My DNO (NG) has already upgraded my incoming fuse from 60amp to 80amp when I had my & my neighbours house separated from a common incoming mains cable (needed when I installed a car charger because the common mains cable was not large enough). They cut the link between the two houses, dug up / mole bored my neighbours drive & put a new cable in for him from the street & replaced both of our main fuses - or so I thought.
A year after installing batteries, solar & getting an EV my main fuse blew. Turns out the DNO forgot to replace the 60amp fuse with an 80amp in my meter cupboard when they did the original work. After blowing the fuse they were on site & replaced the fuse & a rather fried fuse carrier within an hour of me calling them! Apparently our local sub-station is down for an upgrade / replacement.
This & all the previous work was done FOC as well. All this on needed for a 1986 built house. Makes you wonder how much infrastructure upgrade work is going to be needed across the country to facilitate going all electric.
🤦 bet that’s a story the DNO guys tell “remember that time we did all that work and actually forgot to change the fuse “
I am just about to pull the trigger on solar+battery+EV charger, not as yet got an EV wonder if they'll let me have GO?
i didn’t have prove i had an EV, it asked the type of car but that’s it
Great video, how did Agile Tracker fair? I saw a couple of days recently of 32p and 39p per KWh. Not as scary as £1 on true Agile. I have a Heatpump but no EV/battery/solar yet.
I couldn’t find a way to model it, count even find historical prices. If you know where they live I can try and model it
John, great video with clear presentation. Because you have such large battery storage then clearly the tariff with the lowest import rate will win for you (in winter). With your spreadsheet would you be able to analyse what tariff would be cheapest if you had say only a 10kWh battery (like me 😔) or even a small 5kWh one? I have A2A heat pumps and I am on Cosy, but my tariff selection is only judgemental rather than analytical 😊. Also, what are the export rates for the non-Octopus tariffs? Sometimes even in winter we can get paid for exporting (on a rare sunny day).
i decided to leave solar and export out as it’s too variable, my generation and my neighbours are very different and as you say batteries make that even more variable. i will look and see if i can make unusable for different battery sizes, just hope my spreadsheet skills are not too rusty
Hey John, if you add some extra detail on the tomato quote, you'll get better rates, when you add solar, heat pump and electric car. Cheers ❤
how much difference does it make? I really didn’t want to handover lots of personal information to these companies just to do a bit of research but interesting to know that the rates are variable. Thanks I appreciate the information.
@JonathanTracey it should be just some drop downs on their website. But you get midnight till 6am at 5p, so 6 hours, then 9.30am to 11.30 at 13p aprrox and another slot at 10pm to mid night at 13p ish, and standard rate 24p between. And 42p standing charge.
Thing with Eon Next Drive - you don't have to have a smart EV or compatible EV Charger setup/linked to EV & servers as in Octopus Intelligent Go (Zappi/Ohme - linked/sync to car)
With Eon ND it offers 6.7p EV charging & house for 7 hours with ANY CHARGER - heck even a 3 pin Granny charger.
So you don't have to get a new wall-charger or the faff of syncing EV, just plug in your EV, your 2nd EV, or a visiting friend's EV & charge at the off-peak period for 6.7p
Also SEG is 16.5p per kWh when exporting solar - 10% more than Octopus SEG & cheaper off-peak charging
Yes, there are no free time slots with Eon ND, so it's swings & roundabouts I guess, but it is fixed for 12 months with no penalty to change/leave - so it's a fairly good option if you need to fix your energy tariff for a while & no issue to switch a later tariff if prices go down (I've been on it since ND v1 to v2 to v3 etc... - a quick call & it's switched to lower rate in 24hrs, often less)
The ability to charge an old nissan leaf with a granny charger was what swung next drive for me. First very budget ev..no problem 😊
@@robertredpath4817 Yeah, we leased (salary sacrifice) an EV, limped along for 6 months on a granny charger, so you can get by on a 3 pin, bit of a pinch on bigger EV batteries, but you can get by charging say 13kW over night for modest local journeys of 40-50 miles per day at a pinch.
After a while we bought a s/hand EV & a spark friend fitted a variable current cheap/dumb wall-charger to charge both EV's as needed.
We did eventually get a free Zappi fitted/commissioned as part of lease deal, but not long after, we cancelled the leased EV & kept the s/hand one we bought. Got a free Zappi though if I do decide one day to switch to Octopus Intelligent
Eon ND allowed us to charge EV/Home cheaply without having to meet certain requirements demanded by Octopus Intelligent communicating/syncing with EV etc...
I nearly switched to Octopus, but was surprised that Octopus didn't lower their OI from 7.5p to well under 7p, when Eon ND v3 reduced to 6.9p, now 6.7p on v4 (now v5 & same 6.7p) - so stayed with Eon ND, fixing our electric & also gas for 12 months
I think a number of people have realised this & people like "Everything Home" on YT, have done the maths and left Octopus for Eon Next Drive & their higher SEG
It's not just the EV rate, but the SEG means your export value will be 10% higher if you have solar installed...
No offence Octopus, but you gotta up your game a little as Eon ND offers cheaper energy, higher SEG rates without all the data sharing & specific charging requirements to qualify for Intelligent tariff.
There's no referral link - I'm just explaining the no fuss, no app, no syncing alternative to cheaper EV charging & SEG too if you have solar
The one thing I did notice was that with the exception of intelligent octopus go, none of the EV tariffs made you prove that you actually had an EV. Some asked you what kind of car you had, but other than that, you didn’t have to give any form of proof.
@@JonathanTracey You forgot OVO, they require you to have specific smart chargers to qualify for their EV only anytime - same sort of list as Octopus Intelligent Ohme, Indra, Hypervot - not sure about Zappi ???
So, yeah there are a couple of EV Intelligent tariffs, require specific smart chargers or smart EV's like Tesla's that all communicate/verify you have/using said EV on their tariff
I did respond to the Leaf owner but it didn't post (sort by newest & ping it's actually there)
One thing about Eon Next Drive, different to Octopus...
Eon remain on GMT all year...
If you get off-peak midnight to 7.00 cheap charging in winter
in summer when clocks change, you get 01.00 to 08.00 BST off-peak charging as it's still midnight to 7 on GMT
Octopus - do implement daylight savings, switching to BST in summer, unsure how it works when you gain/lose an hour but the off-peak times on Octopus switch between GMT & BST so the times generally remain the same
Eon doesn't & so you need to be aware of this & adjust any timers implementing daylight savings automatically
(If timers don't update daylight savings - then they stay on GMT & function correctly on Eon's GMT schedule)
Personally I like Eon's GMT only schedule, the 7.00am becoming 8.00am in summer means I can shower very cheaply up until say 7.45am on an electric shower, which is better, even though off-peak charging is delayed until 1.00am
Interesting, but one thing you failed to take into account is export rates, over the course of the year it will make a vast difference to those with solar. Even this time of year export rates make a difference to me, I always fully charge on Go, excess solar is exported, any battery left after 7pm is exported, somedays even in December and January my electricity cost is negative.
I didn’t include them because they’re only applicable to a small number of people compared to the general population. However, I fully agree with you. I do the same. I charge my batteries up and if I have anything left by then export it later in the evening. However, for the last month, it hasn’t been an awful lot left.😂
@JonathanTracey Once we get our heat pump, I'm sure we'll have very little left, unless I get another battery. Just watched Andys Off Grid Garage test a DIY battery with 16.6 kWh of capacity, in everyday use the usable would be a bit less though. PS off to pick up my first EV today.
congrats on the EV, what are you getting ?
@JonathanTracey E-Niro 4+ 3 years old. Sat in it now trying to figure things out.
I’m on Agile, for comparison imported 1500kWh in December 2024 at an average of 15.44p. Agile monthly averages over the year have varied between 6.1p and 18.5p. For me this gives the cheapest way of running my heat pump in winter. I have compared Cosy in the winter and November would have been slightly less, December slightly more. A pound or two a day cheaper in the recent high Agile price days, but overall not a substantial saving to be made.
Its worth saying that everyone’s calculation will be different. You have a huge amount of battery storage and inverters that can fill it up, for a lot of people the inverter charge rate and amount of battery storage become the limiting factors to minimising the electricity bill.
Also suggest that if you have solar panels then consider a tariff for summer and potentially a different one for winter as the usage pattern can be so different. I was on Flux before Agile and have looked again at whether to change for this summer, but Flux export at 13.5p is worse than my 15p fixed export rate and the overnight import rate isn’t great either, so running the numbers it looked to be about the same.
And BTW I would not be surprised if Tomato do fail. They’ve recently been named and shamed for consistently failing to settle their half-hour wholesale electricity readings; if they don’t get this sorted then they could well be very restricted in what they can do. We shall see. Be a pity if they do fall.
Agile had been best, but Go would've been cheaper for me during this winter
Agile is my summer tariff of choice, but as you say with large batteries in the winter Go or IGo make more sense for me. with regards to tomato it doesn’t surprise me. I’m very surprised the regulator lets the smaller companies get into the business with a history of so many of them failing
I am on Agile and like it. Luckily I have been on it for a few years so I know recent rates are not the norm. I did have the perfect storm of very cold and the £1 rates. I should have stopped the batteries to make sure I covered those slots, but that day the heat pump was working quite hard and it went flat. I did use the grid when it was £1 😮
ouch, I bet you those days hurt but as you say, if you average out over a full year, you’re not paying anywhere near that for an average price per kilowatt hour
@ indeed. I’m on track for my first £200 bill in over two years. My direct debit was £248 a month back in December 2022. It has been nothing like that since solar and battery installed.
Yeah if Agile which is market price + small markup always was more expensive then the other tariffs, it would imply that the other tariffs was running at constant loss.
@@bazcurtis178unfortunately those broken nuclear plants have made dunkelflautes more costly than they should have been.
@@scania9786 I have always wondered about that
i wish octopus would create a battery only tariff. i don't want to leave but i will save £1k per year on tomato
yeah hard to see how a battery and a battery on wheels are different t
100% Agree it's crazy they don't offer this
@JonathanTracey hopefully octopus will read all the requests for it. btw I used your referral code for my heat pump, thanks
Yes I have panels and battery but can’t access the cheap overnight rates where I am without an electric car. I have calculated that I could save at least £600 a year more if I could get an overnight tariff of less than 10p per KWh.
Why are you not considering Intelligent Flux? I have a solar array, a 9.5kw battery and a recently purchased electric vehicle. I do not normally do a lot of miles per annum,approx 6k.
I have deliberately not changed to an EV tariff for one particular reason which is the export tariff.
Using round figures I can import electricity 21p/kwh from 1900 hrs to 1600hrs. Octopus discharge my battery between 1600 to 1900. I get 28p/kwh.
Using the Octopus EV trariffs you only receive 15p/kwh. If I have excess solar from 1900 to 1600hrs I get paid 21p/kwh. Excess between 1600 to 1900 is also credited at 28p/kwh.
If you have a Zappi charger you can charge the vehicle directly cost zero.
December, January and February are the worst months. I want to run it till July or August to see how I get on when my export picks up.
the main reason was that it’s only available to a very limited number of people, not only do you have to have a givenergy or enphase battery you have to give control of it to Octopus. this would make it impossible for me to model as i can’t predict when they would charge and discharge outside the fixed windows
@ the charging time does not matter as the price of the electricity is the same from 1900 hrs till 1600hrs the following day. That keeps things simple imo. Cheers.
but don’t they have control to export at other times if they need it ?
@@JonathanTracey normally the battery discharges down to about 20% and they can take it down to 10%. I’ve never seen them do that. They sometimes discharge after 1900hrs. On the point you have raised I honestly could not give you a firm answer.
no worries, I appreciate you sharing what you know, as i have solaredge batteries i can’t try it out but will keep digging
Interesting comparison, it's a shame really that you didn't include standing charges, whilst they do vary throughout the country, Tomato is considerably cheaper than all of the others and it would have made a difference to the final figures. The other point re Tomato, the EV Lifestyle tariff can provide 6 hours off peak midnight to 06:00 rather than the 5 hours you presented.
thanks for the info, the main reason for not including standing charges as they vary so wildly they could completely skew the results. For example standing charges in the east of England I’m nearly 20p lower than they are in the north of England or Scotland and that’s per day.
@@JonathanTracey I understand that but comparing whats available in your area comparing to the others including the standing charge would I feel be a useful exercise. Octpus 'v' Tomato is 21p per day different on average, £6.50 on the month. Of course, Tomato dont offer the sign up fees either which I'm sure will help your energy costs (it did for me when I was with Octopus). #8o)
they do offer some good incentives as you mentioned sign ups and referral fees however the big drawer for me is the free energy periods that we get in the east of England. I can take advantage of these to the tune of £30-£40 a month. The number I put up on the screen for December was actually discounted by £40 and a further £15 from export
Good video. IOG here with battery and really would like to jump to EON ND. It’s cheaper and having off peak until 7 (we all get up around 6 or so) would be a huge plus.
Re: solar export income on EON ND - I don’t think it gets applied to account balance? How does that work - anyone know?
i don’t know how Eon handles export but octopus keep it seperate, you get a different line on the bill (and graph) on the website, i suspect it’s for accounting purposes, export payments are not vat rated while import is
By default I think Eon SEG will pay you annually, but you can request quarterly (4 times per year)
Ring them up, they're pretty good, we contacted them to change Eon ND v1 to v2 to v3 etc... as rates changed
Eon stay on GMT all year so the winter 00.00 to 07.00 becomes 01.00 to 08.00 which is great for morning showers in summer & stretching that 7 hours at 6.7p into the summer morning a bit more
Just tell them you have bought an EV and using a 3 pin granny to charge until you get a wallbox for it - they won't care in the end
sounds pretty good, strange they stay on gmt, i haven’t seen anyone else doing that, as you say good for winter
@ Think EDF use GMT all year round like Eon, unsure about others. Originally all smart meters stayed on GMT like ye olde radio signal for E7 tariffs. Octopus compile & process data themselves & so make the adjustment for daylight savings...
People need to clarify this with their supplier and especially if they decide to switch providers - you should double check to avoid large consumption for an hour or so thinking it's 7p off-peak when in fact it is at 25p peak rate - yikes
In the end, best double check with your supplier AND pay close attention to what your smart meter's little display doobery module is saying to confirm what they tell you...
Our Eon little module is a great help telling us what price &when peak/off-peak begins.
It is good for winter if battery storage is getting low when sun sets at 4 & off-peak kicks in 1 hr earlier than summer.
Not a problem in summer when sun sets at 8, 9 or later to wait an hour for off-peak to start.
Enjoying off-peak until 8.00am in summer is very handy, off-peak finishing at 7.00am in winter just means ensuring to shower early & cram in high demand before 7 & batteries charged well on short dark days with low solar generation
Sounds confusing, but it isn't really, plus the display module explains what the rate/times are - clearly showing if off-peak begins at 00.00 or later 01.00
(Display module adjusts for daylight - even though the actual tariff times remain on GMT)
Hi John, I guess your'e not in one of the areas in the east of England where Octopus run the Octopus Power ups?
I have used nearly £110 in totally free electricity from Octopus in the last year just participating in those and I have by no means maxed out the opportunities with it.
I will stay with Octopus as I believe they will continue to innovate and drive change in the market.
yes, actually I do get the free energy sessions, if you look at the usage graph the three or four really big spikes you see those. However, I thought it was only fair to include those in the pricing given that not everybody gets them and they’re not available on all Tariffs. My actual bill was about £30 less than that by the time I included the free energy and the minimal export that I did during December.
Hi Jon. I will be getting solar, battery and ashp soon. No Ev. I was thinking of switching to flux from my Tracker tariff when I get the solar and battery but this has put me off a bit. Any suggestions as to what I should do? I would like to export some power back to grid in summer months if possible. Thanks.
You can get a fixed (15p) export tariff with any normal tariff. I think the only tariff that checks you have an ev is intelligent, the rest don’t do any checking.
Could run Flux just at certain times of the year when export is highest. Tracker or Agile at other times of the year?
I'm on Octopus Tracker and find it cheaper than Agile. I'd be interested to see how it compares with your data?
Check later in the video i did tracker and agile.
@@JonathanTracey I think you must have edited tracker out, would have been interested in finding out more about that.
Yes, Tracker wasn't in the graph?
love 2 have the spreadsheets :)
let me see what I can do to tidy them up because they’re quite embarrassing right now
Tomato?
If they are still around in five years and still have these competitive prices, I will consider to join
someone else in the comments told me that they’ve been around about 10 years but they’ve changed their names two or three times. That tells me everything I need to know.
@@JonathanTracey
That’s useful to know
Thank you
Why are non EV owners penalized when charging storage batteries offpeak afterall we are using the same excess energy as the EVs do. I am on Octopus Flux paying nearly double Octopus GO rates between 2.00-5.00am .Are there any tarrifs where you do not need an EV to get the cheaper rates thanks ?
I don’t know the real reason I suspect there is something in the background to do with government targets but that’s just a guess and I have no evidence of that. The one thing I do know is that apart from intelligent go no other tariff actually makes you prove that you have an EV.
@@CliveTrayte tomato energy might
Great episode. I have 2x Zappis and would be very interested in how you got the both working with Octopus IGO ...
@@EugeneLambert
Not sure you can connect both zappis to intelligent Octopus go.
To connect one Zappi:
1. you have to be an octopus customer with a well working smart meter.
2. In the octopus app go to “switch tariff” choose IOGo and choose integration via the Zappi
3. The whole process takes less than 10 minutes
Like you any gains you could get with other supplier's dont justify the risk stick with what you know
fully agree
Thanks Jon 🙏 balanced approach with real data. Scandalous wanting to start a tariff switch before giving costs!!!
Atari XEGS ❤
The Atari is the latest in my collection, did t come with the light gun though, trying to find one on ebay
Excellent data and presentation but to compare for just December is surely not representative for a whole year, plus solar generation would I guess be at a minimum for December and this was not mentioned. Would love to see your analysis for a year?? including solar
I deliberately left solar generation out of the equation as this may skew the results, especially as the vast majority of people don’t have solar yet. It took quite a bit of work to align all the data with each of the tariffs, to do this for a full year is quite an undertaking.
However, I will look at it and see if there is an easier way to do this